Bologna, in a Renaissance cistern the unprecedented photographic project of Anna Caterina Masotti

From Feb. 5-10, 2025, on the occasion of Arte Fiera Bologna, the Bagni di Mario in Bologna, the name given to a Renaissance-era cistern, the Conserva di Valverde, will host Anna Caterina Masotti’s unpublished photographic project entitled Thea Maris | Resonances of the Sea. The event, curated by Alessia Locatelli and organized by Laura Frasca, combines art, myth and the history of a place steeped in meaning.

The Valverde Preserve, designed by Palermo-born Tommaso Laureti to feed the Neptune Fountain and other water-related places, becomes the ideal place for a narrative equally linked to the element. At the center of Anna Caterina Masotti’s project is the myth of Aphrodite, reinterpreted as a metaphor for the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The protagonist, a young woman, is immersed in a world in which the sea and nature provide the backdrop for this crucial transition.

“Rediscovering ancient codes and references to classical Greece,” says Masotti, “I reinterpreted the idea of beauty through contemporary forms and techniques. The images were taken almost all in the same place, Maratea. Here, my mother was six months pregnant with me, and my destiny was still hidden in her womb. Maratea is not just a background; it is a theater of my childhood summers spent with her, where the sun and the waves danced with us. Today I return to this sea with my fighter, creating a bond that is renewed and enriched like every wave that kisses the shore.”

Thea Maris wants to tell, through Anna’s language characterized by contrasting black and white, not only the essence of the sea but also the strength of the bond between mother and daughter who are intertwined in this journey through time, in which the past returns transformed and renewed in the present in a landscape steeped in history and love.

The narrative unfolds in about twenty images. In the center of the cistern, four images will be printed on chiffon cloths as high as 4 meters, while two photos will be reproduced on two other silk cloths 2 meters wide and 1.33 meters high, placed perimeterally almost enclosing the central ones; on each image Anna Caterina will go to embroider signs, outlines and symbols, to create small and delicate counterpoints within the image. Video mapping will animate the walls of the Conserva, projecting images and videos that will give the place a continuous undulatory movement.

The journey ends in the tunnels that branch out from the heart of the cistern into the depths of the earth: in these spaces, two photos printed on silk and then embroidered will find space on the staircase that crosses passing through two opposite corridors.

“Anna Caterina’s new photographic project,” says curator Alessia Locatelli, “departs sharply from the mere physical representation of beauty to explore a deeper, more symbolic dimension that extends beyond the visible. Her modern interpretation of the myth of Aphrodite is not just an aesthetic revisitation, but a reflection on the contemporary concept of gender, seduction and femininity. While classical sculpture celebrates an archetype of timeless beauty, contemporary photography challenges this ideal, exploring the female body as a space of contradictions and transformations. Photography does not crystallize physicality, but captures it in its continuous becoming. With this project, Anna Caterina Masotti proposes a new reading of Aphrodite, questioning the continuity and transformation of the female figure in modern society through a delicate and intimate work.”

Hours: Opening Feb. 5, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. From Feb. 6: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday only during Art White Night Bologna from 4 p.m. to midnight.

Bologna, in a Renaissance cistern the unprecedented photographic project of Anna Caterina Masotti

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